Humpty Dumpty

A long time ago, in a small town England, there was a little boy named Humpty. From the time he was little, he was a problem child. He ran around picking on others, lying, and making messes. However, but Humpty was much more than your everyday brat.

 He had a very old grandmother on his father’s side. People in the village always said there was something just a bit off about the old woman, but no one could quite say what exactly it was.

 Humpty grew into a rebellious teenager, always getting into trouble. As punishment for one of his latest screw ups, Humpty had to go over to his grandmother’s house to do chores for her. Humpty arrived at her home late because he was off with his friends, getting into trouble, as usual. His grandmother was very, very angry when he finally showed up. She hollered, “HUMPTY DUMPTY! You need to learn some responsibility! Well, maybe this will teach you how to take care of yourself!” With that, she cast a horrible spell upon Humpty. It turned him into a giant, fragile egg.  “What on earth?” Humpty shouted. “What have you done to me you crazy old bat?” He demanded. “Now you will learn that you need to be careful and responsible. You can’t be off doing crazy things that will hurt you. As soon as I am sure you have learned your lesson, I will turn you back into a human.” said his Grandmother. Humpty was so outraged, that he stormed out of his grandmother’s house and into the night.

Humpty decided he would go back to his home and see if his parents could help him. The moment his parents saw him, they smiled. “I see you went to grandma’s house.” said his mom with a laugh. Humpty begged for his parents to change him back, but all they could say was, “We can’t do anything about it. You’ll just have to wait until your grandma fixes it.” Humpty was so frustrated. He slumped off to town.

Humpty wondered around the village, sad and desperate. He tripped once or twice, which caused his egg shell to crack. Humpty was awful scared. He had to keep himself save from any harm, but Humpty wasn’t the smartest fellow and decided he needed to go somewhere high up where nothing could get to him. So Humpty looked for a tall tree or some sort of wall. He found the largest brick wall he had ever seen on the outskirts of his small town. Humpty got a latter and climbed all the way up to the top. Then he kicked the latter down so nobody could come up after him. He sat up there on top of wall for several hours, and got extremely bored. Soon, a people noticed a giant egg boy sitting up on the highest wall and a crowd started to form. Humpty’s family, including his grandma, showed up. “Humpty!” his grandma called. “How will you ever get down from there without breaking into a million pieces?” she yelled, fear covering her voice. Humpty finally realized how stupid he had been. He became very afraid, and started swaying on top of the wall. He slowly tried to maneuver himself to the ladder the king and his men had set up for him, but instead, slipped and plumpeted down. He shattered into a million pieces. His family began to weep. Then his grandmother saved the day. She cast another spell and turned him back into his normal self.

"I learned my lesson, grandma. Thank you for teaching me how to take responsibility for myself." The family hugged and the town rejoiced.

600 word article

So today, I'm gonna tell everybody about a news article! Yay! 'Cause we all gotta keep up with the world around us, right? Right! Especially when it is a highly dangerous super volcano! Keep reading and you'll see what I'm talking about..
In Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming scientists have recently discovered that the magma plume underneath Yellowstone is a lot larger than they first thought. The volcano is already classified as a "super-volcano" which means that it could take out several states if it were to explode. It was already thought to be extremely powerful and dangerous, but now we have discovered that the super volcano is much, much larger than we had previously thought. So if and when the volcano explodes, we will be in a lot of trouble...
Reports from scientists at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah tried out a new measuring technique. Magnetotelluric imaging looks at the electrical conductivity of the plume. By looking at the angle in the plume, they discovered it actually goes on for 400 miles- 250 miles longer than they originally thought it was. This super volcano is getting about 3 times more power than we had thought, making it 3 times more dangerous if it is to erupt.
National Geographic interviewed the study leader, Michael Zhdanov, from the University of Utah. Michael Zhdanov explained a few things about this startling discovery. First, that the imagery used is something like an MRI, where the old data was more like an ultra sound. Both effective ways of measurement, only with different advantages or disadvantages.
Those who live by Yellowstone do not need to panic just yet, however. The volcano may or may not erupt. But with this new research, geologists can examine the crust and learn more about the earth from it. We can now gain a better understanding of the geological structure of Yellowstone and the super volcano. This can help predict when the volcano will erupt and help keep people safe.
This is a good discovery because now we are aware of the danger. We can learn from this discovery and use it to our advantage. It is better that we know about this extremely large and hot volcano then be in the dark and not aware of the problems we a may face.
The bottom line is, we have made a very "hot" discovery!
Sorry, had to throw in the pun.
I'm glad that we made this discovery. Like I said, we now are aware of the danger. It is better that we are aware because we can be prepared. People living around Yellowstone or in neighboring states can get ready in case something does happen with the volcano. We can also learn a lot about our earth from this discovery. Perhaps other super-volcanoes around the world are this large, too. Scientists will now need to investigate this.
At the same time, this is also a very scary discovery. Super volcanoes have taken out entire countries before. I once saw a discovery channel special on super volcanoes and thousands of years ago, a super volcano took out the whole island that it was on. It blew itself up! Crazy volcano done killed itself. They are so so powerful and dangerous that it is pretty freaky to have one so close to where we are.
I guess there is really nothing we can do except wait thought. Wait for scientists to look further into Yellowstone and see what else is going on deep down in the earth. We also can prepare for disasters. Ready ourselves for any possible volcanic activity. Still, there is little chance the volcano will explode any time soon, so we can just relax and go on with our happy lives while the scientists check it out for us.

Yitta Schwatz died last month at 93 years old. She had around 2,000 living descendants. Yitta had 15 kids then they had her 200 grandchildren, which had even more of her great grandchildren. She had 7 siblings herself and decided at a young age that she would like to have a large family. Together her and her husband Joseph raised their 15 kids. Yitta was a stay at home mom while her husband provided for the large family of 17. Yitta was also a survivor of the Holocaust and took in refugees during the war-time. She has the largest surviving family from the holocaust now.
Her husband was a furniture sales man on Lee Avenue and she tended to the family. She had to make home-made bread everyday and had little money for nice appliances. She made around 12 pounds of home-made bread each day to feed her family. 
Can you imagine taking care of 15 children by yourself? You would have to pay for food, schooling, and clothing while also cleaning the house, doing laundry and chores, attending things like sporting events for them, all that jazz. But Yitta did it! She was a loving mother and will be greatly missed by her 2,000 descendants. 

Pripyat- As we entered the kindergarten our guide warned us not to touch anything with our bare hands. This little kindergarten class room was filled with child toys and small cubbies we noticed that everything was covered in dust.

This was not simply dust though. It was the leftovers of the first nuclear accident to ever occur. In this small, innocent corner of the world, a nuclear reactor exploded. Then caused problems in the environment, and killed many people.  After the explosion, the Soviet Union decided to shut down the construction of new nuclear reactors. But they did not shut down the ones they already had because many citizens are employed there and it brings money into their country.

Now the town is deserted. It is highly dangerous to enter into the region without protective gear.

I think it is kind of neat that my teacher picked this article for me to blog about because guess what! We just barely learned all of this in my geography class. Yeah. I learned all about this little accident and the country’s reaction to it. They weren’t too happy….. Let’s just leave it at that. But yeah it was a pretty sad accident.

A dude named Henry Holt wrote a book called “The Last Train from Hiroshima” and people believe that it reveals a secret accident with the atomic bomb that killed one American so they reduced the power in the bombs .But the thing is, they didn’t have eye witnesses of the accident. The only person in the book that knows anything about it was Joseph Fuoco and he was just a last-minute substitute. Mr. Fuoco died in 2008 and he never flew on the bombing run and never substituted for James Corliss on the plane. Scientist, historians and veterans are all dissing on the book and saying that Mr. Fuoco is an impostor and has no right taking credit for Corliss’s flight.

Mr. Corliss is also dead and he died back in 1999 but his family still has the documents from his historic flight. Russell Gackenbach, another member of the of flight crew, also says that Fuoco was not on the plane and that Corliss was the true bomb man.

Mr. Fuoco’s account also disagrees with the Los Alamos weapons lab which says the bomb did not have any problems and that the accident was a lie. A lot of people agree that the book should be recalled.

Officials See Slander, but Artists See Censorship

Umida Akhmedova is a photographer in Uzbekistan and she took a photo of a Uzbek boy that showed village life in an unflattering light. (the photo pretty much made it look like life is horrible over there) The photo caused problems with the country's censorship. Prosecutors said the she intentionally made their quality of life look poor. But Akhmedova says she is offended that she could go to prison over her art. She is simply trying to express herself. She says art is not always happy things, sometimes they are deeper and could be darker. Everything is not always happy and she wants to express deeper meaning in her art work. She think is it is not fair that her country keeps all its artists from creating what they want.
The picture of the boy is actually just a young kid laying down in a building under repair. He does not live in the dangerous conditions but is curious to see the strange room. All Uzbekistan people know this but it gives a different meaning to foreigners. This is why the country's leaders are upset with Akhmedova's photograph- it gives the wrong message to people.
The indepentent artists do not make much money off their work and feel it is unethical that they cannot show most of their work.

Alexa Loo and the Kin Brothers

A failed olympian.
Two hard-working, determined brothers.
Two stories coming together because of a blog.
Alexa Loo was a competitor in the 2006 olympics and failed to gain a metal because she crashed and injured herself badly. Soon after, she lost all her financial supporters. What was she to do now? She simply could not give up on her dream.
Loo wrote a blog about her story and soon she had many followers. One of her followers read her blog and  had Loo tell her story on the radio and broadcasted her accident on MTV.
The Kin brothers heard of her and realized that they were alike- Loo and the Kins both being determined but financially incapable. The Kin brothers built up money from opening small grocery stores and working hard to keep they're dream alive. They soon had 28 stores open and decided to help Loo by putting her profile on their grocery bags. They also made and sold comic books about her. This helped her put her life back together. Her dream was possibly again with their help. Loo is even engaged now. Loo and the Kin brothers are now good friends and Loo is grateful for their help.

More news articles

So once again I am writing a blog about news articles. Yeah, this is like the third blog I've had to write about news. No offense Scooter, but it's getting lame-ish. I have a hard time focusing on one subject like a news story, so these blogs lately have sucked. I'm terribly sorry.
So I found a cute little article that was a simple little story about how a boy from california asked a girl he liked to prom. The boy wrote her a song and sang it and played it on guitar for her in front of their entire third period class. She said she was honored, flattered and gladly accepted his invitation. Someone recorded the whole thing and pretty soon it was a widely viewed video on Youtube and even made national news. I think it is a pretty cute little thing and it's funny how some simple act of chivalry can make national news like that. I was wondering why something small like that could make national news and after thinking about it i have a few ideas on why...
Well first of all, it was adorable. People like watching adorable things, like bunnies and chick-flicks. It makes them feel good. The kindness this boy has almost brings hope that they are still nice, good people in the world. We all like to watch movies or shows about nice or funny people. No one likes watching shows about jerks-unless they are funny. But yeah, nice people are great. Just great. I guess that's why this video is so popular-because it shows a kind kid and an adorable thing he did for this girl.
I bet all the other guys in his school are like, "Man, why didn't I think of that??" I would be. That guy is smooooth. He not only got the attention of the girl he wanted but also of the entire country, just for singing a little song. It was a pretty brave thing to do though. It's scary to have to sing in front of your peers, especially when you are a teenager. Dude, especially when you are a teenager singing about like.. sappy love stuff.
Public speaking is so hard. One of my teacher's told me that the main thing americans said they were scared of when polled is public speaking. I don't understand what makes it so scary but I get scared, too. I mean, I can talk to the teacher in front of the class and it's not a big deal but if I am giving a report to the class it's way hard because I always feel like I am going to mess up.
So it just makes me appreciate how brave that dude was to sing in front of everyone to this girl. If I were her I would be flipping out like "Woah! This guys crazy!" well, crazy in a good way.
It is interesting that it made such an impact on the news though. Two teenagers going to prom together made national news just because the guy asked her in a cute way. I don't know why but I find it interesting that so many people care. Like I said though, it is because people like hearing cute, happy stories. Love songs and romantic movies are popular for this reason. The happy endings make everyone feel good.

Missing mother's body found

I found this terribly sad news article on CNN about a missing woman’s body being found. The lady's name is Summer Inman and she was murdered and dumped in the sewer. Police recovered her body and arrested her mother-in-law, estranged husband, and her father-in-law. Officers had to unscrew the system's cover before reaching the body. "It would appear that she was killed very quickly," Police said. .Summer Inman's abduction and the arrests connected to her case have made national news recently. The mother of three was working as part of a cleaning crew at a local bank on March 22, police said. When she stepped outside, she was grabbed and forced into a white vehicle .Miller said that the evidence suggests all three suspects played a role in the kidnapping, but he would not discuss whether they were involved in the apparent murder. Summer Inman and William Inman Jr. were married in 2004 but the couple was separated..Summer filed for divorce and claimed in court that her husband had threatened to kill her if she took his kids away. So yeah that's what happened. It’s a pretty sad story. I mean who knows if her three relatives really killed her but it pretty much seems like it. It's terrible. How could you kill someone over something like child custody that could be worked out? That just shows how dumb people can be. People killing each other over stupid, pointless things like money. A lot of murders occur because of money issues. It freaks me out! How could you take an innocent persons life over money? The quote that money can't buy happiness is so true. What do you gain? Honestly, killing someone is like..... BAD! A horrible thing you have to live with your entire life. And think about the person's family. They never get to see them because someone wanted money or some other stupid thing from them. Like revenge or like the William Inman Jr. guy because of custody issues. I guess the custody issues are better than money problems, but still, they really could have worked something out. He didn't need to kill her. Does he realize that he probably hurt his children too? I mean, dude! He killed their mother. I'd be pretty freaked out if my dad killed my mom. And what did he think he'd do? Did he think the police wouldn't catch him and him and his kids could live happily ever after? What an idiot. Now he's in jail, the kid’s mother is dead and they have nowhere to go. What else I don't understand about this case is that the guy’s parents helped him kill her. How could they do that? They should be more responsible right? More mature? Not dumb bums that help shed innocent blood. I don't know. Sorry to rant but it's just horrible, sad, and wrong. I hope that the guy goes to prison and Summer Inman's family and children will be okay. It's a sad loss.

"Book Of Mormon" Set to open on Broadway

So, I guess there is a musical called the Book Of Mormon that is pretty much making fun of mormons. I mean, OUCH! 'Cause I am mormon. It's about mormonism and in the play they have Jesus, Joseph Smith, and a few other interesting characters like Darth Vadar, Yoda, two hobbits, and an african warlord. I don't really know what happens in the musical, but honestly, it is kind of rude to make fun of peoples religion and beliefs like that.
But at the same time, they made fun of mormonism on South Park and I thought it was hilarious. Still mean, but funny. The writers of the "Book of Mormon" musical got the idea from South Park actually. So it could possibly be funny. The writers of the play are of course non mormon and think the religion is, well, a load of crap.
 Mormonism is targeted a lot in pop culture these days. But the church pays little attention to what people say about them because they don't want to draw attention to themselves. When asked on their opinion of the musical, church leaders said, "The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a value of scripture will change peoples lives forever and bring them closer to christ." I like this because they aren't starting problems with the people involved in the production but simply stating the truth of their religion.
I, myself am a little tired of mormons getting discriminated against. Latter-day saints are generally kind, charitable, and loving people. Yet we are so often called crazy because we believe in things like Joseph Smith seeing angels and keeping our temples very secretive. But the thing is, we have to keep our temple secretive and sacred. It's like.. the house of God. It's supposed to be perfectly clean. So we can't let just anybody in, you have to be worthy. So.. yeah. You can't judge someone on what religion they are, that's not fair at all. Just keep that in mind if you ever see the musical.

Link to article: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/24/book-of-mormon-set-to-open-on-broadway/?hpt=C2

Photography! Yeyuhh Boii!

I the picture that you see above after school one day. I was actually walking down the backway behind my school after basketball practice and I was on the phone with my mom.. I remember it like it like it was yesterday... I saw the spectacular scene of glorious light and quickly told my mother I would contact her later. I hung up the phone and took the picture. It makes me happy. It reminds me of hope because the sunlight is breaking through the dark sky. It is a very pretty nature shot.  

I took this picture on my cell phone when I was walking home from school with my good friend, Lys. We were heading home through one of those little allies that usually leads into an elementary school. Then suddenly, I looked up. There, above my head, I beheld a wonderous boque of sunflowers peeping over the high white fence. The sunlight was ablaze and beautifully completed the scene. I simply knew I had to photograph the sight.

 So I took this picture last summer when I was at my aunt's house in California. We went down by some tide pools and there was a random railroad track there. The sun started setting when we were walking past it up to the car and I thought to myself, "Hey, the railroad track looks pertty neat. The sun's setting and the track seems to go on forever.. Cool. " So I whipped out mi telephono and took el photograph. (Sorry, I don't speak spanish) But that's pretty much the story of this picture. I really like how it looks because it's like... Woah.. Endless. Like endless possibilities..? Yeah, that's just what I personally think of when I see it.

Billy Mays

Date Of Birth: July 20 1958
Birth Name: William Darrell Mays Jr.
Height: 5' 10"

   Billy Mays was born in McKees Rock, Pennsylvania on July 20, 1958. Mays is best known for his television commercails (the commercials of the guy with a beard who yells at you to buy things).
   Billy Mays was a very energetic spirit and became a famous television personality because his upbeat personality and optimism makes everything seem better. The way he shouted happily about the products he was advertising made them seem desirable to the audience.
    Mays was married twice and devorced his first wife. He had one child with his first wife, Dolorres Mays.
    Mays also helped a lot of people. He endorsed products of everyday people and those people were able to make a lot of money with his help.
   In 1999, Mays moved to Dunedin, Florida and started his own company called Mays Promotions, Inc. There Mays began appearing on commercails and soon got his own reality show in 2009. Mays continued advertising and helping people.
   On June 28, 2009 Billy Mays was found dead in his home. Hyperstention and cocaine contributed to his pre-mature death.

Injuries

So. Today I don't have much to say but I need to write a blog. Hmm.. Yeah.. I really have nothing to rant about or tell you about today. I guess I could tell you about funny injuries.
So has anyone ever slipped in the shower and tried to grab the water stream to save themselves? ...No? 'Cause I have! That's how I broke my angle. I was dancing in the shower one time and then I slipped because its wet and slippery in the shower (in case you haven't noticed) then I was all like, "Ah." and I reached out for the water to save myself. It didn't really work because well.. Its water! You can't grab it! My mommy had to take me to the hospital and get a cast on my ankle. I got made fun of for so long. Especially by my grandma, she thinks I am literally the dumbest person on the planet. She signed my cast, "Smooth move breakin your foot you knothead! love, Grandma" What the crud is a knotthead? Who says things like that??
I guess its not as bad as when my friend's older brother broke his arm. He was pole dancing around this bar on the edge his deck and he biffed it! He had to have a cast on his arm for so long. Me and my friend wrote embarrassing things all over his cast when he was asleep, it was great. So when people asked him how he broke his arm he'd say, "I... fell down.. on....... some ice.." and I'd be like, "Whatever, you biffed it stripping!" It was funny. You should have been there.
Other funny injuries are all around you. There's so many stupid accidents people get on camera. Just watch America's Funniest Home Video and you'll see what I mean. There's also a lot of stupid stuff people do on youtube. Check it out...

See, don't you just feel so much better about yourself after seeing how dumb some of these people are? I know I do!

Is Blogging Journalism?

No, I do not think that blogging is Journalism because journalism is writing more about news and things that are happening in the world. Some blogging could be journalism because people may be writing about things are that happening in the world or media but if somebody is writing a blog about what they did last weekend then no, it is not journalism. Blogging is more of a away of just expressing yourself. You can write about whatever you want and state your opinion on things. Usually in news or journalism, writers do not express how they personally feel about the topic. Depending on the blog it could be journalism, but in general I wouldn't say that blogging is jouralism.

My Opinion on Sir Justin Bieber ..

Hey errybody! So you know who I love?? Justin to the Bieber!  He's so cool. I used to hate him though. Like a lot. I used to think he was.. well.. mean words.. lets just leave it at that. But now I think he's really cool. I like his voice a lot, his songs are always catchy and cute. I like that he doesn't sing about gross things. You know what I mean..

And I've always felt bad for him a bit, too. I mean, he becomes famous and most people make fun of him and call him gay, ugly, say he's a girl. It's sad! How would you like to be famous and everybody just says rude stuff about you? I think it'd blow! I'd hate my life!

But I guess it's al'ight because there's tons of girls who love him. But who wouldn't?? He's a hottie! And he was wicked sweet dance moves! For serious. He's funny, too. He's an altogether neat guy.

And who could forget about his hair? His hair is the coolest thing I have ever seen. Only he can pull it off though. It doesn't look very niffty on other boys. Only the Biebs, 'cause he's the bomb.com.
And tonight his new 3D movie Never Say Never is coming out! I am so stoked! I called the radio station and I won free movie passes for today. Me and three of my friends are going and we're gonna wear our JB shirts. Its gonna be a good weekend!

This is my favorite song by him I think. This one or Eenie Meenie. That's a good'in, too.

Hallpasses

You wanna know something really weird? At my middle school they use planners as a hallpass. I dunno, maybe that's normal. But at my old school we has little orange vest-like things that we wore as our hallpass. Why do I care if we use planners as a hallpass? Because I just got back from the bathroom and I dropped my planner in the sink. Yep. Now it's all wet. This is no bueno. Whatever that means. I hablo espanol. ...I think? Nevermind. Okay well. I'm really upset that I have to put a nasty, wet planner in my backpack. Not. Cool. See, if I had a vest as a hallpass then it wouldn't have fallen in the flipping sink! Or the toilet for that matter. Actually, one kid did drop it in the toilet one time. He brought it back to class and it was soggy. GROSS. Then my teacher made his homework assignment to take it home and wash it. It was a good'in. I'm listening to Justin Beiber right now. I love the Beibs! Okay, well.... that is all.

My Crazy Grandpa

So today I'm going to tell everyone about my crazy Grandpa. He's from england so he has a british accent and he's really old. He's also a very grumpy fella most of the time. So he's british, right? Yeah, but he hates anyone that's british. He told me he would never watch Harry Potter. You know why? Because they're british! When I said, "Well, you're british, too." he just walked away from me. I dont even know, man. He's nuts. He doesn't understand anything about the new generation, he tought texting was a drug. Yeah, he seriously did. He was asking my cousin, the J-Man, about drugs one day. He asked him if he was clean and started telling him not to do drugs like cocaine or texting. Then my cousin busted up laughing and my grandpa got all cranky and stormed out of the room. It was pretty dang funny.

Another time when I was at my grandparents with my cousins we were hungry so we asked my grandpa if there was anything to eat for dinner. So, he pulled out a 2 year-old tub of freezer burnt chocolate ice-cream and told us to eat up. My little cousin said she didn't want to have ice-cream for dinner so instead he got out a bag of pizza rolls. Then, with all of the pizza rolls still in the plastic bag, he put them in the microwave for 10 minutes and left. The plastic bag melted and the pizza rolls burnt. This made my grandpa livid. Our stupid technology just ruins everything for him!

My grandpa's idea of a good time is riding the bus. That's seriously all he does entertainment. That's where he takes me and my cousins for fun. We usually go to the supermarket down the street and pick up a bottle of chocolate milk then head over to the park to sit on the bench and drink our tasty milk. After that we either go on a relaxing ride on the bus or the Trax. It's a jolly good time!
Can't you see why my family loves him at the family get togethers??